61–70 of 88 posts
This needs to be paired with Scientific American: It's time to end the war on salt https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-t...
Actually, the Scientific American article is wrong. This space study also concludes that salt is harmful. Now possibly in more ways than was previously known.
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AFAIK, this is usually not to relieve thirst, but to compensate for the minerals lost by perspiration.
Can thirst be related to salt deficiency?
For the past year I've been on a low sodium diet, not so easy to achieve. After reviewing the renal physiology I learned about years ago re: sodium and calcium regulation, I'll testify it's every bit as complex as I remember and then some. I'll be interested in reading the articles the newspaper report is based on, but ATM not sure how much the new findings contradict (vs. extend) what's thought to be true about the…
It sounds a bit too complicated though, where a transporter would fit in nicely.
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Actually, the Scientific American article is wrong. This space study also concludes that salt is harmful. Now possibly in more ways than was previously known.
Salt intake over years is not the same as salt intake over a month making this study meaningless in terms of long term heath impacts.
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The real bad impact is from disrupting the way your kidneys work. Basically, seawater has a higher concentration of salt than it is possible for your kidneys to remove via urine (due to the physics of that process). For one thing, your body will try to use its existing water supply to flush the extra salt, which means that you'll be urinating (= dehydrating) more than usual. Once that's all gone, and seawater is the…
But the entire article is about the body using metabolic water, not dietary water, to excrete salt. So it wouldn't matter the concentration of the salt in the water you intake - your body would burn enough carbohydrates and protein to generate enough water to dilute it. I suppose in a starvation situation you'd be in extreme catabolism and just make everything worse.
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It's not clear how you can say "no other changes" and follow on with " of course this also implied some dietary changes, like no bread anymore due to sodium contents ". That seems like a potentially significant change you're ignoring.
fair enough, although I personally don't think that cutting bread and eating more potatoes is that big of a difference overall, it is a difference so hey, for all I know that might have influenced things. As I was saying above, n=1 after all.
Bread and potatoes have a big impact on blood glucose levels. Actually, potatoes have a glycemic index that's even higher than table sugar.
Diet is such a complex thing that it's really difficult to control for.
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Salt intake over years is not the same as salt intake over a month making this study meaningless in terms of long term heath impacts.
Nope.
So, I am saying almost 5x the recommended limit for a month might not generalize very well. Sorry, 'Nope' is not going to cut it. Further, the human body climatizes to various situations over time suck as heat or altitude, I suspect salt intake is probably good example of that.
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Nope.
The US recommended salt intake is limited to 1.5g to 2.3g grams of salt depending on some risk factors. Their 'low' intake was 6g and high was 12grams / day. https://sodiumbreakup.heart.org/how_much_sodium_should_i_eat So, I am saying almost 5x the recommended limit for a month might not generalize very well. Sorry, 'Nope' is not going to cut it. Further, the human body climatizes to various situations over time suck…
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I wish I were like you! Before salt tabs, I'd cramp up and be useless after a pretty short time on the bike - maybe 2 hours / 2000 ft of climbing on a mountain bike. Now that I add two of those nuun tablets to my 3 L of water I sweat less and never cramp up anymore. My sweat has always been very salty my whole life. I wish I didn't need to supplement for longer rides but time has shown me that it is unrealistic for m…
That's interesting what you said about your sweat being salty; is be interested in seeing how much electrolytes you're excreting that way. Conversely, my sweat isn't salty hardly at all, I've noticed. I wonder if there is any correlation, because I ride 50 to 60 miles, single speed on street tires, up and down elevation no problem with just regular water, never have had a cramp as far as I can remember. I don't consi…
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This simple lesson was taught to us day one in boot camp when I was in the army, and reiterated constantly over the years. We were required to take our salt packet out of our MRE's and eat the entire contents. The amount of water consumed (and flushed out through perspiration) throughout the day would have severely dehydrated anyone who didn't consume adequate (high) levels of salt.
I drink tons of water and I get lots of cramps, presumably from electrolyte shortage. Is there any way of knowing what the right amount of salt is to be consuming?
Start by making sure you're eating enough. Adequate salt quantity starts by getting it from your food and getting enough to eat. Second just (slowly) add small amounts to your food and see if that addresses the problem. If you're exercising or doing physical activities and sweating a lot while also drinking a lot of water, you likely need to add some salt to food. As others have said, it should not be such an amount that tastes overly salty. Start really small.